China’s digital yuan trial extends to E-commerce giant Meituan

Chinese trials for its digital currency are going forward with Meituan, a leading e-commerce platform service in China. Meituan will begin airdropping digital yuan “red packets” worth 10 yuan [$1.55] to promote low-carbon travel. The e-commerce platform will start the airdrop today for its customers, with the same continuing till 31 December.

As per reports, the red packet can be acquired on the Meituan app along with the process of registration. The sum issued via the airdrop can also be used for the platform’s bike-sharing service payments.

Meituan served as China’s leading e-commerce platform in the second quarter of 2021. Its revenues increased by 77% from RMB 24.7 billion to RMB 43.8 billion.

Here, it is important to note that the use of digital yuan has been advertised as being environmentally friendly. In fact, special efforts have been made to promote it as carbon neutral.

The digital yuan red packets initiative is a collaborative effort of Meituan, Agricultural Bank of China, China Postal Savings Bank, and China Construction Bank for residents in nine regions. These include Beijing, Shanghai, and the Xiongan New Area, among others.

These regions will be able to earn digital yuan and promote the nation’s carbon neutrality by integrating the use of low-carbon travel in daily life. In fact, according to a senior employee at Meituan,

“Our vision is to use low-carbon travel as a breakthrough and take advantage of the unique technology of digital yuan to incorporate the concept of the nation’s carbon neutrality goal to users’ daily life.”

China has definitely doubled down on its efforts to promote its digital yuan after the massive crackdown on crypto. According to the People’s Bank of China, for instance,

“Online asset management, equity crowdfunding, Internet insurance, virtual currency trading, internet foreign exchange trading, and fields have basically completed the rectification work and have been transferred to normalized supervision.”

With virtual currency now at bay and supervised, China is approaching its goal of fully centralizing its digital economy.